


Samhain

by GraceNM



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e06 Halloween, Episode: s05e05 No Place Like Home, F/M, Halloween, Memories, Samhain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 20:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14456871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceNM/pseuds/GraceNM
Summary: A discovery at the Magic Box brings back memories of a Halloween past for Rupert Giles.





	Samhain

"Ooooh, Giles, what is _this_?" Willow squealed, pulling a length of star-spangled purple velvet from a nondescript paper bag. "Oh! Oh! A big cute pointy wizard's hat! Did you get this for the opening?"

Giles, lost in a million worries and mental calculations as he prepared for the Magic Box's grand opening, turned from the shelf he was rearranging for approximately the twelfth time. He hadn't really processed what Willow was saying, just the sound of her excitement, and his breath caught when he saw what she was holding out toward him.

How had _that_ gotten here?

Willow's bright smile drooped a bit at his shocked expression. "Is...is everything OK, Giles?"

"Ah, oh, yes, yes, of course," he sputtered, pasting on a more cheerful countenance. "I just realized I neglected to order amethysts for the charm bags. Nothing that can't be mended. You were saying?"

Willow eyebrows were still skeptical but she repeated herself obligingly. "You're wearing this tomorrow, right? It's perfect. Very festive."

"I...uh...yes, it is quite. I thought it might help put the customers in a spending frame of mind," he lied.

"Let's see how it looks!" Willow pressed the hat into his hands.

Completely at sea, he did what was expected of him, lifting the velvet monstrosity to his head and settling it into place. 

 

* * *

 

"Are you sure this is entirely necessary?"

Jenny ignored the question as she adjusted the silly purple wizard's cloak to her satisfaction, her hands smoothing over his shoulders. She leaned in close enough that he could breathe the scent of her, roses and spice, and for a few long moments, he forgot about his protests.

Then Jenny pulled the tall cone-shaped hat from her bag. His brow creased. "I'm sure I don't remember any announcement about today's faculty meeting requiring costumes."

"I told you. Snyder was very clear. At the end of the meeting, we'll be going to help the trick-or-treaters find their assigned chaperones. Anyone who doesn't show the proper Halloween spirit gets extra detention duty."

He sighed. He had to admit, that sounded just like the weaselly little toe-rag. He stooped reluctantly so Jenny could put the hat in place on his head.

She stepped back then to admire her handiwork, mirth tugging on the corners of her mouth. She chewed on her lower lip a bit, her eyes teasing him.

"This is bloody ridiculous," he pouted. At that, she burst into laughter. He wanted to be annoyed, but the sound filled his chest with warmth. He snuck a peek at his reflection in the glass of his office door and couldn't help but chuckle himself. 

"I thought of lodging a complaint," Jenny said when she'd calmed a bit. "But I decided just to go with it. And boy, did that pay off."

She pulled her own costume out of her bag then, a military-style jacket and jaunty cap. She slid pair of lensless glasses onto her nose.

"And who are you supposed to be?" he asked. 

She smiled smugly. "Grace Hopper, of course."

"Grace who?"

"Grace Hopper. One of the first programmers of the Mark I," Jenny said excitedly. " A total pioneer. COBOL probably wouldn't even exist without her."

 "I see," Giles said, though he did not. "And she was a…uh, naval officer?"

"Rear admiral. They even named a ship after her."

"So you have dressed me as a wizard from a children's cartoon, while you portray a brilliant computer scientist."

She laughed again. "You're just lucky that I ended up with that stuff in the coven's last white elephant exchange. Otherwise you'd be hanging out with the kids in detention for the next month."

"I'm not altogether sure that wouldn't be a better fate," Giles responded. His face turned suddenly grim. "If Buffy spots me in this confounded hat, I'll never hear the end of it."

Jenny's only response had been to laugh harder.

 

* * *

 

"—wait for everyone to see you tomorrow!" Willow was saying.

Giles shook his head to clear it, nearly upsetting the wizard's hat. He lifted it off and set it on a nearby table. "It will be…quite the experience."

"Do you think we're all set for the opening?"

His smile turned genuine at that. The books had been shelved, the herbs and mystical ingredients bottled, the talismans carefully displayed. The Magic Box sparkled, thanks to generous amounts of both elbow grease and Windolene.

"I dare say we are," he said. "Your help has been invaluable, Willow. Thank you."

"I do what I can," she said, clearly pleased. Then she noticed the time and raced to gather her things, promising breathlessly to return in the morning after her classes to help with the "fingers-crossed big" opening-day crowd.

When the door jingled closed behind her, Giles deflated into a chair. His hands couldn't resist reaching up to run over the soft nap of the purple velvet she'd left lying across the table. The bag with the wizard's costume must've gotten mixed in with the things he'd brought from home – artifacts he was planning to sell, books from his personal library that he wanted to keep on hand for reference. He hadn't touched the cloak or hat in almost three years.

He didn't know why he had held on to them. Yes, Jenny had touched them, but it seemed foolish to keep them only to hide them away. Though perhaps that was only fitting. He had been foolish in so many ways when it came to Jenny Calendar.

He wondered what she would say now, if she were sitting here with him in the slowly darkening Magic Box. He had no doubt that she would love this development. Before he'd even closed the deal to buy the shop, she'd have set up a program to run his books and his orders and his inventory. Flooded her cybercoven with promotional deals. Recruited new suppliers around the world.

She would have looked out for him the way she did that Halloween afternoon, volunteering the two of them to direct the parents in the parking lot and keeping him far away from Buffy and Xander and Willow as they picked up their trick-or-treaters in the school lobby. 

He had felt so alive that fall, and almost as young as his slayer and her friends. There was a new pleasure in getting to school each morning. Even dreary faculty meetings had held a certain appeal.

So of course that was when his past had wrapped its icy fingers around his neck.

 

* * *

 

The school hallways were dim and quiet as Giles made his way back to the library that All Hollow's Eve, his mind reeling and his knuckles throbbing from his encounter with Ethan Rayne.

He wanted badly to go home and pour himself a drink, but he had promised Jenny earlier that he would meet her for a midnight ritual, a way of honoring all the students and faculty of Sunnydale High who had died in the past year.

When she first mentioned it, he had thought with some small swell of pride that the list would certainly be longer if not for Buffy. But then he remembered how close the slayer's name had come to appearing on the list and his stomach twisted. 

He felt that same inner dread now. Buffy couldn't know about him, about his past, or he would lose her. She'd never understand. None of them would, even–

“What the hell just happened?"

Jenny's voice rang out as soon as he pushed open the library door. She was standing beside the table, one small lamp illuminating her face in the dark room.

"I was stuck in my car for a half an hour while mini-monsters pelted it with sticks," she continued. "I thought it was just kids playing a prank, but…they didn't look like kids. They gave up and ran away after a while. And then I came in here and you were nowhere to be found. I didn't know what to think."

The concern for him that colored her voice was touching. He walked toward her, eager to soothe away her fears.

"I'm sorry, I was...It was the costumes. Enchanted costumes. The proprietor of Sunnydale's new costume shop turned out to be a chaos-worshipping sorcerer."

Her eyebrows lifted but she looked relieved. "So that's why the bones I've been casting have been all wonky. But Buffy took care of him?"

"Unfortunately, Buffy's costume left her somewhat indisposed. I was...I was able to convince him to break the spell."

"Oh." Now she smiled, a little wickedly. "Did the wizard suit come in handy, then?" 

"I, ah, I wasn't wearing..."

"No, I suspected as much." She touched the cuff of his jacket, her warm fingers slipping over the bare skin of his hand.

He looked down into her eyes, glittering in the low light, and he lost himself in them, his fears, his past, his darkness slipping away. 

 

* * *

 

The memory fizzled then, like a record scratch. He'd been so utterly foolish. Why hadn't he told her? About Ethan and Eyghon and Ripper? Why had he trusted her so little? 

If he had only bared his heart, might she have done the same? Would they have determined why it was so important to keep Angel and Buffy apart? Would she still be…?

He broke off from the what-ifs. He had tortured himself with them for too long. During his interminable year of unemployment, the questions had too often hooked themselves together, one after another, until they chained him to his bed or to a bottle.

While he was pleased by Buffy's newfound eagerness to explore her slayer heritage, the idea of staying in Sunnydale had worried him. The threat of falling back into those long, listless days seemed more dangerous than buying the Magic Box, even though so many of his shop-owning predecessors had met brutal ends.

Well, none of them had had the foresight to set up a training room for the slayer on the premises, he thought with a small smile. Already the young people were seeking him out here, instead of his flat, and he was glad of it. A new place to call home for all of them.

He stood up from his chair. The sun had set and the Magic Box was dark. And he knew now what she would say to him if she could.

 

* * *

 

"Life is for the living, Rupert. But we like to acknowledge that the dead never leave us completely," Jenny said, striking a match and lighting candles and incense for the midnight ritual in the library. "Don't get twitchy. I'm not planning to actually summon any of them – although with the Hellmouth's power, I probably..."

She trailed off, her eyes laughing at his anxious look, but she grew serious as she recited the blessing and read their names: Chris Boal, Jesse McNally, Stephen Gregory, Robert Flutie, Fritz Siegel, David Kirby… Her voice faltered a little, but she swallowed and went on… Morgan Shay, Kevin Benedict, Sheila Martini and more, names Giles didn't immediately recognize, faceless students and teachers he would never know.

He thought then of Randall, of all the years lost to him, of all the possibilities snuffed out for a chance to get high.

"Please bring them peace, that they may rest and sleep with ease," Jenny finished. She held out her hands and he clasped them, pulling her nearer until he could gather her in his arms. 

"So many dead," she said, her voice small and sad. "So many kids… The guy who hired me for this job… I've never had a Samhain like this."

He wished he could promise her that the coming months would be different, that the turning of the year from light to dark wouldn't mean more death and loss and sorrow. But Ethan's smirk loomed in his mind and foreboding swelled in his throat.

He held her instead. Held her close and hoped it would be enough.

 

* * *

 

Nothing left to do now but wait for the first customers to arrive, Giles thought with satisfaction. He sipped his tea and glanced at his watch. 9:02 a.m. Any minute now they would surely begin arriving in a steady but decorous stream.

He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before – too much nervous excitement, too many memories. But in his last short stretch of slumber before dawn, he'd dreamt of Jenny, not cold and still, but dancing. 

9:06 a.m. He removed his glasses and began to polish them with his handkerchief. Perhaps his marketing efforts had not been adequate. No, no, it wouldn't do to worry yet.

But when 10 a.m. arrived without a single paying customer jangling across his doorstep, he felt that desperate measures might be required. Maybe there was something to the idea of a festive atmosphere after all.

He walked behind the counter and found the wizard's hat and cloak tucked away where he had left them. He hesitated, but then donned them with decisiveness.

As if on cue, the door opened, and he smiled with satisfaction. But instead of an amateur witch eager to part with her cash, the person entering the shop was Buffy.

He froze his smile into place as he met her gaze. She was so grown up now, but he could still see the 16-year-old girl she had been when they first met. The one whose teasing he had wanted to avoid on that Halloween so long ago. She said not a word, just looked at him, but her face bore the resigned expression of a teenager gazing upon her hopelessly embarrassing parental figure.

He was touched.

For her sake, he reached up to pull off the hat. As he tucked the costume away, he could almost hear Jenny laughing, and his chest filled with the old familiar warmth.

Life was for the living, but she hadn't left him.

Not completely.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Sunnydale Fanfic Club's February 2018 contest (just three months late!). This is my first Giles/Jenny fic. I wanted to get it done in time to have it beta'd before Calendiles Day, but that didn't happen. So apologies if I've made mistakes with canon, characterization, British, paganism, computer science or anything else.


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